How to Decorate Shelves in a Small Colorful Kitchen

Open shelves needs order to look their best.

A kitchen with open shelves looks casual, fresh and airy. Additionally, open shelves make a small kitchen look bigger and keep your everyday items easily accessible. Shelves can display colorful dishware, glasses and collectibles instead of hiding them in a cabinet. However, if you aren't careful, your shelves can become a jumbled mess. With a little attention to order and design, your shelving can turn your small kitchen into a colorful showstopper.

Painted Shelves

The most popular look for open shelves is a coat of white paint; white opens up a small space and makes the perfect backdrop for a colorful display of kitchenware. Picture the cheerful charm of white shelves showing off brightly colored bowls, mugs and pitchers. Soft shades of blue, green or yellow are other possibilities. Match the color of your shelves to other trim in the kitchen. If you prefer natural wood, use a light wood that won't compete for attention or make the kitchen look closed in.

Nicest Pieces

Though you don't need to replace all your kitchenware, open shelves are not the place for mismatched, plastic dishes, chipped or ugly mugs or an assortment of sippy cups. Use your shelves to show off your favorite and nicest pieces of dishware and glassware. Small, attractive appliances, collectibles and cookbooks look good as well. If you store food on your shelves, transfer cereal, grains, pasta, snacks and other small food items into glass jars or colorful canisters. Use baskets to hold baking supplies or cooking utensils. For best effect, open shelving needs to be as decorative as it is functional.

Things of a Nature

Create order on your shelves to keep the look cheerful instead of jumbled by keeping similar items together. Store bowls stacked in one area, mugs in another, and canisters of food on a separate shelf. Alternatively, arrange items according to color. Keep the look harmonized instead of overwhelming by choosing just three colors to display; decide on the method that works for you and stick with it. Make it clear you have arranged your shelves purposefully, not just stacked them haphazardly.

Keep It Simple

It's easy to lose control over your open shelves, turning a decorating plus into a mess. Overcrowded shelves with teetering stacks of multicolored dishes make your kitchen look smaller and untidy. Store anything overly large, unattractive or outside your shelf-organizing system in a closed cabinet. Arrange your items so you have some open space on the shelves to keep the look airy. Periodically, step back and look at the shelves from across the kitchen. If you can't see any open space, or clutter has replaced order, it's time to remove a few things from the shelves and store them in the closed cabinets.